it was in question, and it was in part because of political decisions that had been made prior to the obama administration, but also because of the economic crisis and the feeling that somehow america had caused this, and so part of the responsibility i had was to go out, fly the flag, restore that confidence, make it clear that our leadership was intact, to set the table for the pivot to asia, to dealing with the arab revolution, to restoring really close relationships with our partners in europe, looking to enhance the neighborhood in latin america, and on so many issues, whether it was putting together international coalitions with iran and north korea, figuring out what to do with libya that would bring an unprecedented coalition between arab and nato countries, or whether it was just looking down the road at how we were doing diplomacy and introducing new tools into that mix, it was a very different time than ten, 20, 30, 40 years ago. i've kidded our mutual friend, henry kissinger, think how impossible it would have been for him to sneak off to china in the age of cell phones, t